Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/40

xxxii affairs during his illness, and now gratuitously made himself his general agent in town, disposing of his rooms in the Temple, arranging his money matters, and receiving the bounty of his kinsmen. With him and with Lady Hesketh Cowper now began that regular correspondence which has won for him the praise of being "the best letter writer in the English language. " His letters to Hill are playful, and relate mostly to his finances; those to Lady Hesketh are entirely of a religious character. He is still enraptured with his own religious condition, and. hints that he would fain see her even as himself. It is evident that though no one could have had a higher regard for him, she had little sympathy with his religious fervour. We note in passing that she sent him "Hervey's Meditations," and that he was delighted with it. Besides these, he opened correspondence next year with Major Cowper and his wife. The latter, it will be remembered, was also his first cousin, sister to Martin Madan, and therefore, in Cowper's present state of feeling, a peculiarly acceptable correspondent. Several of his letters to her are a discussion of the question of mutual recognition in heaven, he holding the affirmative against her negative. From one of them we learn that he had formed an idea of taking orders. Fortunately he abandoned it. Meanwhile his finances became embarrassed. The following extract from a letter, written less than a fortnight after he got to Huntingdon, is amusing, but very much to the purpose. It is addressed to Hill.

",—Whatever you may think of the matter, it is no such easy thing to keep house for two people. A man cannot always live upon sheeps' heads, and liver and lights, like the lions in the Tower; and a joint of meat, in so small a family, is an endless encumbrance. My butcher's bill for last week amounted to four shillings and tenpence. I set off with a leg of iamb, and was forced to give part of it away to a washerwoman. Then I made an experiment upon a sheep's heart, and that was too little. Next I put three pounds of beef into a pie, and this had like to have been too much, for it lasted three days, though my landlord was admitted to a share in it. Then as to small-beer, I am puzzled to pieces about it. I have bought as much for a shilling as will serve us at least a month, and it is grown sour already. In short, I never knew how to pity poor housekeepers before; but now I cease to wonder at that politic cast which their occupation usually gives to their countenance, for it is really a matter full of perplexity."

This prepares us for the announcement by and by that lie has "contrived, by the help of good management and a clear notion of economical affairs, to spend the income of a twelvemonth" between June and September. His relatives wrote to scold him for what they considered extravagance, and a few months later Colonel dale Major) Cowper threatened to give him nothing more. While this correspondence was going on, he received an anonymous letter, telling him that if the threatened withdrawal should take place, he had one who loved and admired him, who would supply the deficiency. He thought that Lady Hesketh was the writer, but it is more likely, as will be seen hereafter, that it was her sister, Cowper's former love. His anxiety was naturally returning. Besides, Huntingdon advantage in the decline of the year than in June, and his outdoor pursuits were becoming circumscribed. But at this critical moment a happy accident came to his relief. His daily attendance at church, his solitariness, his